by Brian Harmon
“Should we split up?” asked Nicole. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted speaking them. That was the last thing she wanted. Splitting up would mean wandering off alone in this awful darkness.
“No,” said Brandy quickly, grasping Albert’s elbow as if fearing that he would leap at the idea.
But Albert did not like the thought any more than she. “No,” he said. It was an emotional response. He couldn’t stand the idea of sending Brandy and Nicole down these desperately dark tunnels all alone. There was a monster stalking these corridors, and they would probably be easy prey for such a beast. If they parted company now, he may never see them again. “Definitely not. Besides,” he realized as he considered the idea more carefully, “if we split up, we may never find each other again. We need to stay together.”
“Safety in numbers,” Brandy agreed.
Albert nodded. “We leave the way we came in: together.”
He picked the middle passage, as randomly as he’d chosen the path on the right the first time, and resumed walking.
A few minutes passed and the tunnel continued straight ahead with no intersections or obstructions. As he walked, he dragged the chalk along the wall with his left hand. He was careful to press lightly to conserve it. It was their only way of knowing where they’d been and when it was gone, they would have nothing to keep them from walking around in circles.
The tunnel began to slope upward, becoming a hill, and Albert felt a sick dread begin to creep into his stomach.
“Are we going up?” Brandy asked.
Albert nodded. “I don’t think this is going to be as simple as we thought.”
“Who thought it was going to be simple?” Nicole asked.
“If this thing turns out to be several stories deep,” Albert continued, “there’s no telling how long we could wander around down here. We could walk for days and never even find our own trail.”
“That’s it,” Nicole said. “Keep on encouraging us.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Look,” Brandy said, trying to be positive. “We’re not completely in the dark down here. We know that Caggo thing is down here. With any luck, it doesn’t know about us yet. That gives us some advantage. And we know we’re going the wrong way if we see the meadow, thanks to Nicole.”
“Thanks to me?”
“Yeah. I think that thing back there liked you.”
Albert grinned. “I think you’re right. He probably doesn’t see many hot girls down here. Maybe if she goes back and flirts with him, he’ll give us some more clues.”
“Oh god!” Nicole exclaimed. The expression of disgust on her face was priceless.
“Come on,” Brandy urged. “If you put out, he’s bound to show us the way out!”
Nicole laughed. “Don’t even joke about that! Did you see that thing?”
“So what?” Brandy replied. “He’s got a better personality than Earl.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “No shit.”
“He’s a working guy,” Albert offered. “He must get great benefits. You two could settle down in a nice cave somewhere. Have a bunch of freaky little mini-keepers.”
“Oh, it would be such a lovely wedding, wouldn’t it?” Brandy giggled.
Nicole shivered comically and mimicked a gag reflex. She could almost feel the little creature’s hot hand upon her shoulder again, its skin sliding across its bones as if it were not actually attached to its flesh, but merely wrapped in it.
“It would be perfect,” Albert agreed. “I can hear him now, asking, ‘Who’s your creepy daddy?’”
“Seriously, stop!” Nicole laughed.
Brandy had to stifle her laughter behind her hands. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“You guys are horrible! Gross!”
They reached the top of the incline and the floor leveled out again. A short distance beyond, they encountered a T-shaped intersection, leaving them with another left-or-right decision, neither one of which was likely to be the magical passage that would lead them out of these walls and out of reach of the Caggo.
As randomly as he’d selected the past two, Albert chose the right tunnel and tried not to think about the shrinking odds of finding a correct path before the resident monster caught their scent.
“Seriously, though,” Brandy said after the humor had subsided, “what was that thing?”
Albert shrugged. “He definitely tops the list of weird things we’ve seen today.”
“Do you think he really just hangs around the entrance to this place, waiting for people to happen by?”
“Has anybody but us ever ‘happened by?’” Nicole asked.
“It would definitely take some serious dedication to your job,” Albert agreed.
Brandy giggled. “He’s like a Wal-Mart greeter in hell.”
Albert grinned. “He is, isn’t he?”
Another intersection appeared from the darkness ahead of them. They could go right or they could keep going straight. Trying not to think about all the wrong ways they could go, Albert chose right and kept moving.
A few minutes later, they turned a corner and found their first dead end. Immediately, claustrophobia and panic tried to fight through Albert’s rationality, but he forced it back. “No problem,” he said. “We knew we’d hit a few of these. We’ll just back up to the last path we didn’t take and try again.”
The three of them turned and followed the yellow chalk line back to their most recent wrong turn. “If I keep the chalk in my left hand,” Albert reasoned, “we’ll always know which way we were going when we come back to our path. Plus, if both sides of a passage are marked, we’ll know it was a dead end.” Mindful of his concern about running out of chalk before they could finish navigating this enormous maze, however, Albert chose to conserve it by only marking the wall near the previous intersection as he made his way back. It served no purpose to use any more than that.
“Good,” Brandy said. She was glad he had a plan because she certainly did not know how they were going to get out of this place. Without him, she was certain she would be trapped down here forever.
There was a possibility of erroneously marking a passage as a dead end when it was not, Albert realized. If they made a big circle, for example, they might return to a previous intersection, where they would have little choice but to follow a previously traveled path, possibly leaving behind unmarked and unexplored passages that could lead straight to the exit. He was counting on the Keeper’s assertion that there were many solutions leading where they wanted to be to allow for that kind of mistake.
They turned right, down the passage that Albert decided against the first time, and continued walking. A moment later, they entered into a small chamber where three separate tunnels intersected, giving them six passages from which to choose. Five, not counting the way they came.
“Are we lost yet?” Nicole asked.
“We’re not lost as long as we have a way back,” Albert assured her.
“Which way do we go?” asked Brandy.
“Doesn’t really matter,” Albert replied. “Straight ahead I guess.” He pressed the chalk to the wall and began walking again.
After a few minutes, Nicole asked, “What do you suppose the Keeper meant when he said that I was different?”
“Maybe he meant that you’re not psychic,” Brandy suggested. “The Sentinel Queen told us that Albert and I were psychic, but not you and Wayne.”
“That was what I thought he meant, too,” Albert said. “But I really didn’t know. He wasn’t exactly talking my lingo.”
“I don’t feel very psychic,” Brandy said.
“She said we were a lot less psychic than Beverly,” Albert explained. “That’s why we could get through that room between the spike room and the bridge and she couldn’t.”
“I guess so,” Brandy said. “But I still don’t know if I believe it.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter if we believe it,” Albert said. “We’re kind of stuck with it
.”
“I don’t know,” Nicole said. “I think it would be cool. You guys could work on it, maybe go to Vegas.”
Brandy laughed. “Yeah. That would be cool.”
“I don’t know how this thing works,” Albert said. “Knowing my luck, I’d probably have a blind spot for aces.”
Ahead of them, the path that Albert had chosen from the six-way intersection forked into two separate passages. Albert chose the left branch and kept walking. This took them into a curve that became an ever-shrinking spiral, eventually leading them to a dead end. They retraced their steps to the fork and went right instead, only to eventually find themselves right back to the six-way intersection and their own yellow line.
“Okay then,” Albert said, considering the situation. They had explored half of the tunnels they were now looking at. “Let’s try this one,” he decided, choosing the passage to the left of the one that led them to the fork. He was glad he thought to keep the chalk in his left hand. Knowing which direction they had traveled might be useful later. And given that his first piece of chalk was already considerably smaller than when he started, he couldn’t afford to waste time on bad decisions.
Soon, Albert saw two more tunnels branching off of this one, one to the left and one to the right. As he drew closer, he saw that there were two more identical tunnels beyond those two and the tunnel they currently occupied continued on into the darkness.
More decisions.
More mistakes waiting to be made.
Chapter 5
For nearly an hour, Albert, Brandy and Nicole explored the labyrinth. The paths before them curved and diverged, twisted and intersected. Frequently, the passage ended in a solid wall or else circled back to their yellow chalk line, and each time it did, the three of them grew a little more anxious.
There had so far been no sign of the Caggo, but it was likely only a matter of time before it realized they were here. And Albert had no idea what they were supposed to do when it came for them. With no idea what sort of beast it might be, he could not even begin to formulate any kind of defense against it. With each second that passed, he became more certain that they could not possibly hope to escape it. They were, after all, lost within its labyrinth. It was inevitable that it would eventually catch their scent and it would either run them down or corner them against one of the countless dead ends. They had no weapons and no means of escape. He could not imagine why the Keeper would even bother to warn them of such a peril. It only served to panic them as they became more lost.
What was the Caggo, Albert wondered. How would it attack them? What would it do when it discovered them? Was it anything like the monster in Gilbert House? That thing had been a walking nightmare. Solid as stone, freakishly strong, like a great, bald ape, it had the ability to crush their bones with its bare hands. And it almost used that very talent on his and Wayne’s skulls. Perhaps the Caggo was the same sort of creature. But on the other hand, it might be something far more carnal. Perhaps it slashed and tore instead of bludgeoned and crushed. Perhaps it was all teeth and claws. Or perhaps it was something even worse, something that did not kill so swiftly.
The first stick of chalk was gone and they were now using the second. After some consideration, Albert decided to stick with the color yellow until it was gone. He was anticipating being down here for a long time (assuming the Caggo didn’t eat them in the next few minutes) and if he used each of the five colors in the tube only once, he’d be able to tell when they circled back to their path about how long ago they’d been there. He wasn’t sure if this information would come in handy or not, but it couldn’t hurt. If nothing else, it might potentially provide them a shortcut back to the beginning of the labyrinth if things turned nasty.
And, as it turned out, the potential for nastiness was considerable.
The passage ahead of them suddenly opened into a small, empty chamber. The floor of this room was set approximately six feet below that of the passage from which they approached, with no easy means of descending. It simply dropped straight down. Albert knew even before he shined his light onto it that the floor was covered with those mysterious, telltale scratches.
The hounds had their own passages, an entire labyrinth all their own, according to the Keeper, interwoven throughout the temple with the corridors he was attempting to navigate. This was one of the places where those two labyrinths intersected. And it was a terribly dangerous place to be.
Albert could see two passages leading out of the room a short distance ahead. Both of these tunnels were flush with the floor, and therefore accessible to the hounds. Beyond those passages, the darkness loomed. They had two choices. They could turn back now, or he could drop down and see if there was another raised passage on the other side.
On one hand, they should remain safe from the hounds as long as they stayed out of their territory. But on the other hand, they were not altogether safe anywhere. For all they knew, the only way to reach the exit and escape the Caggo was to take risks in places like this.
“I’m going to have a look down there,” he decided.
“No!” Brandy snapped. “The hounds!”
“I know,” he assured her. “But I don’t hear any.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not here.”
“I know that too.”
“Then don’t,” she begged him.
“I’ll be okay. I’m just going to see if there’s a way across. For all we know, it could save us hours.”
“Or take us right back to where we started,” Nicole argued.
“I’ll be fine.” Without waiting for further protests, he dropped into the passage and cautiously crept out into the room, swinging his flashlight between the two tunnels.
“Be careful!” Brandy whispered after him.
Two more passageways appeared from the darkness beyond the first two, both of them belonging to the hounds. He probed each of them with his light, making sure there was nothing lurking there, and made his way toward the far side of the chamber.
Another raised passageway appeared at the opposite side of the room, just as he’d hoped. And when he approached it and shined his light into it, he saw that there were no scratches on the floor.
“Come on,” he called, daring to raise his voice only enough to be heard across the chamber.
Brandy and Nicole did not hesitate. They dropped down and crossed the room at a near run, unwilling to spend any more time than necessary where the hounds could reach them.
Albert helped Brandy climb up into the higher passage and then Nicole. Then he paused as he glanced down at the scarred stone beneath his feet. Something was there, lying just a few inches from the toes of his left foot. He knelt down and picked up a small object. It was about the size of an arcade ticket, roughly rectangular, and a deep, reddish-brown color that faded into translucence on one side. He almost hadn’t noticed it in the darkness. One of its long edges—the darker colored one—was rough, as if it had been broken from a larger object. The other edges were all extremely fine, like a blade.
“What is it?” Nicole asked, kneeling at the top of the ledge and lending her light to his as he stared at it.
“No idea,” Albert replied. It was extremely thin, but also very strong. It flexed a little when he attempted to bend it, but did not break. He gently ran his thumb down its edge and found that it was as sharp as he’d suspected, leaving a shallow slit in the friction ridges of his thumb.
“Looks kind of like a razor blade,” Nicole observed.
It did. Very much so. He held it up and looked at it again. “But it’s not metal.”
In fact, it looked organic. Was it some kind of tooth? Or claw? It was chipped in several places along its sharp edges. Albert looked down at the floor again, at the scratches that scarred the stone. He wondered if something like this could have made those marks.
“Sweetie?” Brandy interrupted as she stood beside Nicole, her empty hand resting on her bare hip while she pointed the flashlight at him with the other.
“Think you could take a look at that up here where you’re less likely to get eaten by a monster?”
“Sorry,” Albert replied. He started to drop the mysterious object back onto the floor where he’d found it, but decided instead to take it with him. For all he knew, it was a clue of some sort. He slipped it into his backpack instead and then climbed up into the upper tunnel. Before turning away, he scanned the scarred floor of the chamber once more with his flashlight. There didn’t seem to be any more, but their dark color probably made them difficult to see on the gray stone with just a flashlight.
As the three of them continued on, Albert contemplated the mysterious object, wondering if this night would finally give him his chance to see these strange creatures…and if he’d live to regret it if it did.
Chapter 6
Soon, Albert had come to the conclusion that the object was probably not a tooth or a claw. The texture and color suggested that it was probably composed of keratin, like fingernails and hair. But while it could be a broad and very sharp fingernail or a peculiarly shaped claw, he thought it was more likely that the object was a scale of some sort.
Did this mean the hounds were reptilian? That certainly added a new dynamic to his imagination. He remembered talking about the temple after their return the year before, at first with Brandy and later with Nicole as well. He had compared the unusual noise they made to that of an agitated rattlesnake, among other things. He had no idea what they could be. He never saw the creatures. That noise was the only clue he had. But earlier that evening, when the man with no eyes confronted them, he warned them to be wary of the beasts and referred to them as “hounds.” Since then, he had been imagining some manner of fearsome canine, a mutant wolf perhaps. Now this scale was a reminder that he still had no idea what they really were, that the damn things could be anything at all.
But he didn’t know for sure that the scale and the hounds were even related. For all he knew, the scale could belong to the Caggo instead. Or perhaps it belonged to some third creature of which they were not even aware. He certainly didn’t trust the Sentinel Queen or the Keeper to tell them everything. They both seemed fairly determined to share as little information as possible with them before sending them unarmed into a deadly labyrinth.